How Is Error Possible In Mathematics?

Talk With M. Hermite. He Never Evokes A Concrete Image, Yet You Soon Perceive That The More Abstract Entities Are To Him Like Living Creatures.

A Very Small Cause, Which Escapes Us, Determines A Considerable Effect Which We Cannot Ignore, And We Say That This Effect Is Due To Chance.

It Is By Logic That We Prove, But By Intuition That We Discover. To Know How To Criticize Is Good, To Know How To Create Is Better.

Mathematics Has A Threefold Purpose. It Must Provide An Instrument For The Study Of Nature. But This Is Not All: It Has A Philosophical Purpose, And, I Daresay, An Aesthetic Purpose.

It Is A Misfortune For A Science To Be Born Too Late When The Means Of Observation Have Become Too Perfect. That Is What Is Happening At This Moment With Respect To Physical Chemistry; The Founders Are Hampered In Their General Grasp By Third And Fourth Decimal Places.